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New site feature: comment response notifications
Occasionally we get a request from readers to receive copies of responses to their
posted comments via email. We have recently freed up a bit of hacking time and
added that capability as a subscriber-only feature, with a bit of a twist.
That twist is this: response notifications are only available to
subscribers at the "professional hacker" level or above.
When we switched over to the subscription model, we implemented the "starving hacker" level as a way for people who couldn't afford the full LWN rate to subscribe anyway. The intended audience was students, people who were looking for work, and those in parts of the world where $5 was a lot of money. Over time, we have noticed a few trends:
The conclusion we have come to is that, as LWN (hopefully) grows, we need a way to motivate people to select the full-rate option that goes beyond "you'll feel better because you're supporting LWN." Given a cheaper choice with the same benefits, many people will, rationally, take that route. So limiting response emails to the higher subscription levels is a bit of an experiment. Hopefully, it is a small inducement to select a higher subscription level which does not actually deny anything truly important to the "starving hacker" subscribers. We may take a similar approach with other new features in the future, depending on how this one works out. Getting response notifications is easy: there is a new dialog that shows up when a comment is published that enables the email feature. There is an expiration date, and the option to get notifications for responses all the way down the tree. There are a couple of things worthy of note:
You can also set your default response preferences in the account customization area. While adding that capability, we also, finally, added an option for the default setting of the "plain text/HTML" flag for comments. (Log in to post comments)
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 2, 2004 16:36 UTC (Mon) by TheOneKEA (subscriber, #615) [Link] I had wondered for a long time when you guys would begin differentiating between the various subscriptions that you currently offer. I personally think that this is a great first step towards adding more value to LWN.I think that something you should consider next for the highest subscription level (can't remember its name) is to make available a mailinglist or an FTP server from whence LWN content will be available in PDF format for download.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 2, 2004 17:10 UTC (Mon) by holstein (subscriber, #6122) [Link] Or something easy to grab for the PDAs : I suggest the Plucker format.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 5:22 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link] I'd like to second this. I'd really like to be able to read LWN on my PDA. Whetherit's available by plucker or avantgo isn't as important.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 8:39 UTC (Thu) by raphael (subscriber, #5769) [Link] I do support that idea: it would add great value to be able to get LWNevery week as a pdf in my mailbox
Need to update the other parts of the FAQ Posted Feb 2, 2004 16:38 UTC (Mon) by nigelm (subscriber, #622) [Link] Just had a browse round some of the subscriber related stuff (having been a subscriber for quite a while).You have updated part of the FAQ for this new feature, but missed updating the text under "What does a subscription cost?".
Need to update the other parts of the FAQ Posted Feb 2, 2004 16:59 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Good point. Fixed now, thanks.
Also "Subscriptions" page Posted Feb 2, 2004 18:20 UTC (Mon) by jbh (subscriber, #494) [Link] The "Subscription" page should also be updated to reflect this.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 2, 2004 17:18 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] People should be having an easier time finding jobs. Our President says so, so It Must Be True.Things seem to be getting better in the IT industry, at least in some small way. The last few years have been pretty lean for independent contractors, but things have been opening up the last six months or so in my area. Perhaps you should add a subscription option for overpaid contractors. $-)
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 5:39 UTC (Thu) by frazier (subscriber, #3060) [Link] I have been largely under-employed for the last year and a half (but took out the regular subscription instead of the double rate which I'll probably migrate to when I'm back on my feet again), taking freelance whatever, and low paying random hardware testing. On the same day last week I started my first full time job in a long time (at most of my old salary anyway, but not even) I was offered a low paying test job but full time, 40hrs a week.The economy is coming back. The dotcom hangover is passing. Shouldn't have partied like it was 1999 (and '98, '97, '00, '01)! On another note, I appreciate the new email feature. Thanks LWN!
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 13:28 UTC (Thu) by amh (guest, #1902) [Link] People should be having an easier time finding jobs. Our President says so, so It Must Be True.Thankfully, this is an un-common example of US-centric thinking in LWN's pages. Please don't consider only the economic situation in the States when deciding on future commercial directions. (I live in the U.K.) I have always chosen my subscription level based on my economic situation. I think that I have behaved "ethically" whenever I have done this. LWN has to choose a balance between encouraging people's sense of fair play, and going for the market model. I would suggest that the subscription model worked, when it was initially needed, at least partly because of people's sense of fair play. Having said all that, I am happy with this first differentiation between "Professional level" and others. Mind you, this is partly because I have never wanted the facility :) I also wouldn't think it unfair to delay a "starving hacker's" access to the new issue by twenty-four hours. I do hope, however, that some advantages will accrue to the middle subscription level as well.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 16:09 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] The world economy is more dependent on the US than many would like to admit. The evening news airs a 15 second clip of Alan Greenspan commenting on the state of the economy, and it ripples throughout financial markets around the world. I'm not saying this is good, but it happens.
"professional hacker" feature candidate Posted Feb 2, 2004 17:32 UTC (Mon) by christophe (subscriber, #1557) [Link] What about providing full content in your rss feed for "professional hacker"?I could be implemented simply using the user@password authentification method supported by most news aggregator apps. You could even add advertisements (InfoWorld does that). Also the tracking of comments, could be done by providing a comment feed entry for each news. So a user want to watch comments on a given news, he simply subscribe to the comments feed.
And for something completly diferent Posted Feb 2, 2004 19:00 UTC (Mon) by melo@isp.novis.pt (subscriber, #4380) [Link] Hey, it would be very nice to have the option of sending via email or Jabber.Having a Jabber message for this would be cool :)
And for something completly diferent Posted Feb 3, 2004 9:59 UTC (Tue) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] Was just about post the same thing :)
Subscription options Posted Feb 2, 2004 22:05 UTC (Mon) by Vaughn (guest, #19145) [Link] I'm still looking for a "poor student" option - maybe $3.5.Quite frankly, I don't think your content is worth five dollars a month, especially since I don't actually *need* any of it. I still enjoy reading, though. YMMV
Subscription options Posted Feb 2, 2004 23:36 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] If its not worth $5.00 then why do you read it?I know...dont feed the trolls.
Subscription options Posted Feb 5, 2004 12:44 UTC (Thu) by Vaughn (guest, #19145) [Link] I pay the 2.5$ I can pay; what I was suggesting was that it might be an idea to let people pay a bit more if they want to.
Subscription options Posted Feb 5, 2004 11:20 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link] If you are really that poor, why not just read the daily updates, which are free, and wait another week for the full edition? I think LWN content is easily worth $10 a month, particularly when Linux is under attack as never before and also managing to move much more onto the desktop.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 2, 2004 23:40 UTC (Mon) by fredrik (subscriber, #232) [Link] As a student, taking the starving hacker route, I just wanted to say that I fully support this differentiation effort. While I still think that those $5 actually makes a difference in my wallet, I also think that the people that pays full dues also should get more bells and whistles.So go for it. It certainly gives me an incentive to change level as soon as I have a real salary.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 3, 2004 17:56 UTC (Tue) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] Since the main benefit to paying is getting premium content seven days early, why not implement a bit of the wait time for starving hackers? Say, a 24-hour delay before making premium content available to them. This wouldn't be much of a hardship for the starving hackers, and it would make full subscribers feel like they were getting something in exchange for their extra money.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 4, 2004 7:25 UTC (Wed) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link] This is really funny...I fully support the idea of differentiating between levels, but I never, ever considered to choose an upper level of subscription because I would receive something more, I did it only because I felt it was the right thing to do. I mean, the levels seemed designed so that everybody could contribute according to his/her possibilities, so I accepted this, and choose a level according to my possibilities. I never tought that a "professional hacker" would choose the "starving hacker" level just for convenience. But maibe I'm just too idealist... Anyway, given the current state of things, this small differentiation seems a very good (and well balanced) idea... really smart ;-)
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 6, 2004 13:57 UTC (Fri) by jbh (subscriber, #494) [Link] I agree and I don't mind missing out on this feature. I am currently studying and while not exactly starving I do have to economise a bit.However I've thought about it a bit and I think perhaps this will make me less, not more, likely to upgrade when I get a job again. Without the differentiation, it would be a matter of conscience; the right thing to do, as you said. The more differentiation the more it feels like "you get what you pay for" -- ie. it feels more acceptable to pay less because I also get less. I know others feel differently, but I think there is a chance it can cut both ways.
Ordinary money-for-service exchange, agreed Posted Feb 7, 2004 15:39 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] > I think perhaps this will make me less, not more.> likely to upgrade[.] Without the differentiation, it > would be a matter of conscience; the right thing to do, > as you said. The more differentiation the more it feels > like [an ordinary exchange of money for services]. From a "pro" subscriber that just renewed for another year, I must say I agree. When I took out my initial subscription, it was at the "starving" level because that was all my budget could handle at the time. However, I purposefully made it a shorter than normal subscription so I'd need to reevaluate in three months or so when I thought I'd not be so cash strapped, and so it was. When I did so, as expected, I had that bit of extra cash and upped my level to pro. That was a bit over a year ago, and as I said, I just renewed at the pro level, all with no difference between levels. Now, this feature is a useful one, and I don't begrudge LWN the idea of different tiers of service for the different levels. However, it DOES make it seem more "commercial", like going to the store and purchasing bread or something, not something I can be proud of supporting at a level above the bare minimum, just for the sake of it. Thus, the next time the subscription renewal comes up, if this trend continues, I'm far more likely to consider it and eveluate it as just another bill, with the pleasure of supporting a publication I believe it gone. Whether I'll downgrade to starving again, or not, I don't know, but I'll not be as likely to upgrade, certainly, and MIGHT just decide there are more effective ways to spend my money altogether, on a straight money-for-personal-service level, since I'm often to busy to read LWN anyway. The new feature, tho, IS appreciated and could be fairly useful. We'll see how it goes. You know.. I think perhaps the 24-hour delay thing mentioned by others for "starving" might be better for level differenciation, if LWN is going to go that way, and make this available to all subscribers. Then, perhaps another $1.25/mo "paid registered" level.. Yearly billed only, and an option available to the $2.50 level and above to filter out the "unpaid" comments. That would probably cut down on the junk posts we get to a few threads, now. Taking that further, allow folks on the "leader" level and above the ability to filter out specific poster's comments.. One other related thought.. Add my vote to the open sourcing the code thing. I'm not to the point where I'd likely contribute to it myself, but it just doesn't seem "right" for a beacon of the "open source" community to have their source closed, and that's what we have now.. Duncan
I suggest nntp access Posted Feb 5, 2004 8:31 UTC (Thu) by lotzmana (subscriber, #3052) [Link] I've mentioned this previously. NNTP is the most natural way to follow threaded discussions and there are plenty of news readers. Will it be hard to add nntp gateway to LWN?
I suggest nntp access Posted Feb 5, 2004 9:34 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] That would actually be seriously cool!
I suggest nntp access Posted Feb 5, 2004 20:34 UTC (Thu) by xorbe (guest, #3165) [Link] Other other cool thing about that is discussions wouldn't end so darn fast as the items moves off the page.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 12:34 UTC (Thu) by stuart_hc (subscriber, #9737) [Link] I support the efforts of LWN.net to encourage more higher paying subscribers, however I object to the assertion$5 is no longer very much money in much of the worldThis statement appears to ignore the large number of IT students and professionals living in countries where $5 is an impossibly high monthly subscription. Perhaps the author intended "much of the world" to mean "much of the western world". Living in a city in India with significant IT industries like Hyderabad, $5 US (about 230 Rp) is a significant burden for students and even some professionals. To illustrate this, here are some items a Comp. Sci. student in Hyderabad could spend 230 Rp on:
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 14:33 UTC (Thu) by sfllaw (subscriber, #7137) [Link] Wow. Here in Canada, there is no way you could get a textbook for 25 loaves of bread. You would need 100 up here.It's amazing how large the price disparities are.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 20:02 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] It seems to me like LWN ought to accept services in exchange forsubscriptions, since money is an enormously inefficient way of getting value from subscribers in places with lower costs of living. On the other hand, there's a set of 37 articles which is only currently available in English and might be more helpful to driver authors in their native languages. I think, in the US, translation of an article is probably worth about 8 months of project-leader subscriptions, and I don't see any reason the same exchange rate wouldn't apply elsewhere.
Feature request Posted Feb 5, 2004 13:08 UTC (Thu) by walterh (guest, #19113) [Link] Speaking about features, here is one that would be really nice:The "comment" link at the end of each article points to a page which has the comments, but it doesn't automatically scroll down to them. It just needs an anchor and a slightly modified link to achieve this, and it would really be great to be able to reach the comments without scrolling.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 14:42 UTC (Thu) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] You know, there are a lot of good ideas for new features which corbet can't be expected to ever get around to coding, testing, tweaking, and eventually putting into production while still creating the phenominal content we keep coming here for. However, as I have - mentioned - before, a virtual army of coders (well, at least a small platoon?) would be willing to contribute implementations of at least some of these ideas if only the LWN.net code base was opened up...
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 5, 2004 16:12 UTC (Thu) by davidm (subscriber, #35) [Link] Differentiation between levels is a good thing. Please add a plucker option for PDA's and a pdf option. Hang that on the top level if you like. Those I'd find useful.
What would be a valuable feature (IMHO)? Posted Feb 6, 2004 1:36 UTC (Fri) by maney (subscriber, #12630) [Link] The switch for setting the default mode for comments relieves a minor annoyance. If only it could have a third setting for wiki-style markup (I would vote for Moin-Moin's version, both because it's written in Python and because I've been working with it already). Yeah, I know that would take a good bit of work. If you ever release the code it might take less of your time... <wistful grin>OTOH, I'm not sure that changes that encourage the comments side of LWN are the best use of your time. What I have always found most valuable about LWN, and most lacking in many other, perhaps more popular, Linux/geek community sites, is the thoughtful consideration behind the reporting. I'm not sure if those misgivings about the balance between LWN's own reports and the comments have much to do with it, but the response notification option doesn't much interest me. It did goad me into writing the preceeding paragraph, which was interesting because I had thought I was just being odd, as usual, in not thinking much of the feature when I first saw it described.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 8, 2004 23:41 UTC (Sun) by siesel (subscriber, #5021) [Link] To differenciate between subscriber levels is ok and fully understandable.But the first two reasons ("$5 is no longer very much money..." and the "job situation" commet) are a shame for LWN.
New site feature: comment response notifications Posted Feb 9, 2004 10:35 UTC (Mon) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] I agree. It's flippant, and it's stupid. Current inflation-rates are single-digit more or less in the entire world (where I live we've actually got deflation at the moment), thus $5 is, infact, almost exactly as much money now as it was when subscriptions where first introduced.That said, you get the same value for it now as you did back then, also from Lwn. Introduction of newer features to those who pay more in no way takes away from your value. I'm with the skeptical ones on this one though. Before it was can I afford to, and would I like to, support Lwn more? (in the moment, the answers for me are no, yes, inspite of living in western europe.) With this change, I fear that more people will instead start to think; Are those extra features worth the extra money ?. Problem is, either the answer to that is "no", or else you're excluding our poorest members from significant parts of the site. Personally, I will certainly upgrade my subscription the day I get a job. But I'd do so because Lwn deserves it. Because I'd like the nice people who produce this to get a raise. Because I'd like them to some day be able to hire more people. I'd *not* do it for some extra features, and infact I'd strongly dislike a Lwn that separates between it's readers baced on economical possibilities. A reader from the USA that pays $60 pays 0.15% of average yearly income. A reader from India that pays the same is paying 2.6% of the average yearly income, in other words almost 20 times as big a part of his salary. That is the equivalent of an American paying $1000. How many do you honestly think would do that ? Don't you think it's a bit arrogant to say "it's not much money" ? At the very least, please consider a "Readers from countries with a GNP/person under $10K gets all features even at the cheapest rates" Yes I know, Lwn doesn't have many paying readers from such countries, but atleast it's a nice gesture. One of the nice things about Free Software is that people from poorer countries can play along on a level field where your ability to contribute is not limited by lack of cash. I would want Lwn to be the same way.
The value of $5 Posted Feb 9, 2004 15:52 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] When we started the subscription scheme, $5 cost the better part of €6. Now it's rather closer to €4. Given that over 60% of our readers are outside of the US, I'd say that $5 is, in fact, less money now to the bulk of them.What I was really trying to do was to post some snide comments about our currency and our president. This was always the wrong soapbox for that sort of stuff, of course.
The value of $5 Posted Feb 10, 2004 13:48 UTC (Tue) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] That is true. Compared to some countries, the Us dollar has indeed lost some value.Still, $5/month is a lot of money to a pretty large part of the world-population. More than 5 billion of the poeple in the world have not yet selected ANY operating-system, personally I would like Linux to be a viable choise for atleast some of those. Personally, I think you, and all the other Lwn-people *deserve* a LOT more cash than you're presently getting. I can't with the most positive guesses imagine you're getting more than half of what you're worth. For Lwn to seek more income is natural and healthy. I've got no problems with that whatsoever. I only wish that it'd be possible to do so without coming off as snotty. Without shutting out people from poorer countries. Without sounding as if "everyone" is doing well. (when infact I'm sure the Lwn staff is well-aware that many are still without work.) Fact is, to a average person living in a rich country, and having a job, Lwn is cheap. To pretty much anyone else it's not.
The value of $5 Posted Feb 11, 2004 14:12 UTC (Wed) by larsga (guest, #2801) [Link] These two things sounded a wrong note for me, too. I accept your explanation, but even had you made it clear that this was your intention (which would have helped) I would have preferred not to see this. One thing I've always liked about LWN is how you've consistently (well, mostly) avoided any reference to issues irrelevant to LWN's subject area. I can still remember the pleasant surprise of reading the 2001-09-13 edition, with no reference whatsoever to the events two days before. I'd much prefer to see this continue.
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